Summary: Satan often tries, but has no right to prevent God’s children from entering into His blessings.

Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. [KJV]

(Hold Up A NO TRESPASSING Sign)

You may recognize this sign as a barricade to entering certain areas.

Just as with men Satan tries to keep you out of certain areas. These are the areas in God’s will. Often Satan’s attempts are obvious, other times they are not. His subtle ways are there to confuse you into believing that God’s ways are off limits. He goes to where you are and gets between there and where you need to be. It is in that place that he tries to fool you by saying, "Keep Out", or "No Trespassing".

He does this in such a way that you forget your inheritance and your power in Christ.

However we can find victory if we remember that Satan can’t put up No Trespassing signs on areas that he doesn’t own.

A Haitian pastor wanted to illustrate to his congregation the need for total commitment to Christ. His parable: A certain man wanted to sell his house for $2,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn’t afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door.

After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.

The Haitian pastor’s conclusion: "If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ’s habitation."

Dale A. Hays, Leadership, Vol X, #3 (Summer, 1989), p. 35.

We too must give all to God- but to do this we must enter into His areas of blessings. To do this we must go through Satan’s hostile attempts to barricade revival.

But the Lord answered him and said, "You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? 16"And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?" [NASB-U]